"I sexually exploited a now-dead employee and also I've got God on speed-dial and he always does what I want" is quite the self-portrait. Of right-wing Christianity. And evangelical entitlement.

Well, that was a helluva season finale. Well played, Starfleet Academy.

Oh, just randomly posting this. No reason. It's well past time that we prioritized improving each other's lives instead of ending them. www.nationalpriorities.org

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Brendan Loper. #NewYorkerCartoons

I've posted about this before but I just looked up this article for something I'm working on and I cannot deal with this - the quote, or the way it's presented without direct follow-up or context. What does "Hispanic labor" mean? www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

Being a leader isn't about what political office or other significant position you've managed to get into to. It's about what you do in whatever position you're in. Actual leaders actually lead. The Dem Party has "leaders" and it has people who lead, and that Venn diagram needs to overlap more.

Now if they want to talk about *corporate crime rates* ... but of course they don't. Because they're some of the criminals.

Ethical questions are all easily answered ... if you're not the person who is actually in the situation. If you think you know how you'd react in a similar situation, despite never having been in one, you're wrong. You don't know. Don't pretend you do.

Jamelle Bouie clearly and quite publicly works very hard to be informed and even-handed and anyone talking about him as if he’s not doing either of those things should shut the fuck up and definitely be widely ignored

The fact that the U.S. has been so successfully brainwashed into thinking that sunburned white guys with cheeky Nazi tattoos Define the Working Class when the ACTUAL working class is non-white women (many of them immigrants) - yeah, that’s one of the great madness runes of our time.

"... the op/ed page ... should be publishing pieces that make the case for that policy or decision. Even if the policy is bad!" I may be just a whacky lefty, but I'm pretty sure that *amplifying arguments for bad government policy* is not why the 1st Amendment protects freedom of the press.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

The problem I have with nearly all of the "If a Democrat did this" examples in the last 10 years or so is that it usually would never even occur to a Democrat to do it. I mean, I get the point and it's not wrong, but I keep getting distracted by the set up for it.

As I often point out, I have MORE THAN ENOUGH exposure to other opinions in the rest of my life. And that's been true for my entire life. If MAGAs had half as much exposure to other opinions as I do ... they'd be less likely to be MAGAs. Maybe.

Everything seems awful and chaotic and powerless, so I am left to do what I can only do: share some beauty with the world. I have no wise words or platitudes, but I do have a camera and empathy. A shot from my first global geomagnetic storm (2024) 💛 #iceland #northernlights #aurora #peace

All these people walked into a bar, and the bartender said, "Hello, Donald."

People outside of the US (so far, generally speaking): "The US government sucks but I guess we shouldn't bomb them." That's not a tricky distinction AT ALL. It's not subtle. It's not nuanced. Tens of thousands of people made that distinction at the Olympics opening. Quickly and spontaneously.

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.

It's a sign of how absolutely awful the Asshole-In-Chief is that he could reasonably be impeached OR subjected to the 25th Amendment. Or both. The fact that neither is happening is a sign of the level of GOP criminal collusion. (And secondarily, the timidity of too many Dem "leaders".)

well fuck Welcome to the Epstein War.

People are going to yell and be assholes today because they're upset. Not telling you how to respond! Just reminding you (and by you, I mean me) in advance that it's going to happen. 99% of cases won't really be about the thing you said or wrote. They're just furious, and you happened to be there.

There used to be a joke that went something like, "If voting could change anything, it'd be illegal." The GOP keeps trying to make it illegal. So it's clear that they think voting *could* change things, if too many of the "wrong people" are allowed to cast votes for other "wrong people".

Dammit, that's another Starfleet Academy episode that was so very good. Hokey but brilliant writing and no I don't really know what I mean by that but whatever. And the cast is up to it and for it.

I am deeply aware I lucked out in career and spouse and spend a lot of time paying forward the luck, because why are we here if not to try to make the lives of others better.

Okay, today is starting out as another day of Grampa Allyn kvetching about things being presented as new when they aren't actually new. "Worse? Sure. New? NO." Now where the hell did I leave my cane?

"I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win."

Donald Trump killed two of my constituents. He is a liar and should be ashamed of himself.

Something something SkyNet something

Four years ago, when people thought Zelensky would flee....

Most of you kids probably don't know about this guy, but he's ... hell, I dunno how to describe him. Nearest I can come is that he's been around nearly forever and is sort of a countercultural futurist? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

A+ State of the Union counterprogramming by TCM.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced “Abolish ICE” as the winner of a citywide snow plow name contest. He had earlier given it a “full and complete” endorsement.

I felt like watching a classic movie last night, so the spouse and I pulled up "Grapes of Wrath". Made in 1940 but still packs a wallop. (Partly because some parts of it are all too recognizable.)

It's basic common sense that the only bold, transformational, and meaningful demand ... is to shut ICE down and start criminal investigations where relevant.

Reading people. Body language. Knowing how to connect with people totally unlike you and with different backgrounds and beliefs. Defusing tense situations. Gaining trust. High endurance, pain tolerance, and work ethic. Reaction time. Prioritizing order of execution. Anticipating people’s needs. Etc

Relooted: the South African video game where players take back artefacts from western museums

If I had a nickel for every time my first response to something Trump did was "What an asshole", I could probably bribe a couple of SCOTUS judges.

"We invented pornographic art tens of thousands of years before written language." - @funkittoys.bsky.social points out that history has always been ✨💕fucked💕✨, as illustrated by @erikamoen.bsky.social Public post with references: www.patreon.com/posts/150935...

How thoughtful of them to include accessible cages for people with impaired mobility. 🤬 Including the captives that they kneecap, I suppose.

Never in a million years did I ever fathom when I resurrected the Epstein story in 2018 that it would lead to first arrest of a British Royal in four centuries. Not since King Charles I was arrested in 1647. open.substack.com/pub/jkbjourn...

Okay, WTaF is a "galactic meteor shower"? [sigh] That's so ... Trekish.

Muppets are a PROVEN technology. Hell, we should take SpaceX away from Musk and let Miss Piggy run it.

"About $100 billion in commercial real estate loans that have been packaged into securities will come due this year and probably won’t repay when they should. More than half of the loans are likely headed for foreclosure or liquidation." That's bad, right? REALLY bad?

Okay, credit where due, this is actually a pretty good headline and sub-head from the NYTimes. It's rare that corp media makes the connection this bluntly. Or at all, really. Republicans, Braced for Losses, Push More Voting Restrictions in Congress www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

When Ds are back in charge, they have to change everything. No moderate half-measures. Just relentless razing of the corrupt institutions that enriched the worst people in the world and propped up fascism. A few suggestions...

Let me tell you a tale of how completely the normies have been mobilized. My 14 year-old niece has done School of Rock for the past 5 years; last summer she was part of their touring band, and the kids loved playing together so much that they decided to keep doing it. (1/?)

Some thoughts on the passing of Bud Cort. Trigger alert: Embarrassing memories of adolescence.

Okay, I got an idea, hear me out. An "AI" ... but trained only on what Trump and members of his administration have said or written. Including from "Truth" Social and other social media platforms. "AI" hallucinations*100,000%.

Note that this was written by Nikole Hannah-Jones, who is - somewhat surprisingly - still at the NYTimes. (Best known for "The 1619 Project".)